


The Road Not Taken

by spideysmjs



Series: Where the Love Light Gleams [1]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Holidays, Mentions of Cancer, Neighbors, POV Outsider, Reconnecting After Breaking Up, Slow Burn, death of a family member
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/pseuds/spideysmjs
Summary: They haven’t seen each other since August, and she’s long past convincing herself that when they meet eyes again, it will feel the same.There’s a light tap against her window, the same sound that used to make her entire body quiver in fear of opening the screen to a potentially beaten and bruised post-patrol Peter.Now, the feeling is numb.Five times MJ finds herself back in New York for the holidays.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Series: Where the Love Light Gleams [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055843
Comments: 150
Kudos: 117





	1. the most wonderful time of the year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/gifts).



> Happy first day of Promptmas, friends! I told myself I'd only have three fics for Promptmas, but Taylor Swift dropped an album with a song that I cannot stop thinking about. 
> 
> I immediately had to do something about it, as one does. 
> 
> Thank you, [mynameisbirdie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisbirdie/pseuds/mynameisbirdie) for letting me scream this idea into existence the night the album came out, and thank you also for beta-ing. 
> 
> This fanfic is dedicated to someone who continues to inspire me in the realm of fanfiction. Thank you, Seek, for loving Taylor Swift and Spideychelle as much as I do. Enjoy the angst with a happy ending! 
> 
> _62\. "I thought this was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year."_
> 
> Title from "tis the damn season" by Taylor Swift.

i. _eighteen_

Michelle grazes her combat boots against the raggedy welcome mat she picked out when she was eight years old and ignorantly blissful. It says _No Place Like Home For the Holidays._

She scoffs. 

Her heart feels heavy, the kind of familiar feeling that’s made her drag her feet down the halls of her dorm in Cambridge, through the wet and sloshy snow back in Queens, and right to her doorstep, just a few feet away from the confrontation she’s been dreading since the start of the semester. 

She thinks he feels the same way. 

They have always ridden one wavelength together, especially when it’s about their relationship. 

It’s not that she doesn’t miss him. She does – very much, so much, _too_ much that when she studies for her Intro to Sociology class, all she can think about is if Spider-Man’s going to live to see another day. It’s an ache that stays in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her head, and in the secret places in her heart that she only ever allowed Peter to visit. 

The dull feeling follows her back into her childhood bedroom. She laughs at herself as if childhood didn’t end just six months ago when she delivered a top-notch valedictorian speech while Peter and Ned cheered her on from the front row of the football field. 

She shimmies out of the thick layers she tucked herself into for travel, jackets thrown lazily on her old desk chair. Her parents aren’t home, Michelle finally checking her phone after commuting alone in the evening, too cautious to be distracted. 

There’s an unread message from her mom:

_Out shopping late. Leftovers in the fridge for dinner. Love you!_

And there are several unread messages from Peter:

_I can meet you at the station? Do you want me to?_

_Let me know when you’re almost home_

_Are you safe?_

_MJ?_

The closer Michelle made her way back to Queens, the stronger the dread came crashing into her as she plops into her twin bed, untouched sheets empty and cold. 

She starts typing, then stops. 

_He feels the same way_ , she thinks, she breathes, she repeats until it becomes true enough for her to find vindication in what she’s about to do.

_I’m back home safe. No one’s home. Are you next door?_

Michelle sends the message with tears in the corner of her eyes and a pounding in her chest. Heartbreak at eighteen is normal, and breakups don’t make the past relationship any less real. She knows what real love is. Hell, she learned what love is from the way Peter looks at her – _looked_ at her. 

But they haven’t seen each other since August, and she’s long past convincing herself that when they meet eyes again, it will feel the same. 

There’s a light tap against her window, the same sound that used to make her entire body quiver in fear of opening the screen to a potentially beaten and bruised post-patrol Peter. 

Now, the feeling is numb. 

She quickly lifts herself up, tiptoeing in her own room like she isn’t supposed to be there anymore – like she’s a ghost of her old self, convinced that time in college is warped and different and set in an entirely different universe than her hometown. 

She braces herself for the conversation she’s been planning on having since their FaceTime calls gradually stopped, since Peter accidentally dialed her while he was being brutally beaten by Doc Ock, since she realized that maybe she can’t handle the life of a superhero’s heroine, after all. 

But then, the moment she finally catches his gaze through the dust-filled window–the moment Michelle believed would set in stone her decision to walk away from this before it’s too late–is the moment she decides to forget that the ache exists.

Peter is smiling, a goofy grin paired with bright eyes that fills her with the warmth she’d been missing – the warmth she thought had gone away, but in reality, she buried it beneath the hardships of starting a new life in Cambridge. 

She slides the glass open. “Hey, bug boy. You could knock on the front door, you know.”

“I just got off duty,” he says, both hands placed behind him on the railing of the balcony. “Plus I barely used any powers to get here.”

“Just some basic wall-crawling?” she lifts her eyebrow, ignoring her conscience sending alerts down her spine as if she has her own spider-sense. He shrugs. She backs up further into her room allowing him space to come inside. 

His presence fills up the room in the same comforting way it always has. Right now, Michelle’s a senior in high school again. Right now, it’s past midnight and she’s scrambling to her first aid kit and textbooks so that they can both catch up on Peter’s homework together. 

Right now, she’s starting to remember why she can’t forget about the heavy feeling in her chest. 

She’s taken by surprise at the feeling of his lips pressing softly against hers. When he pulls away, he lands another gentle kiss on her forehead. “I’ve really missed you.”

“I’ve really missed you, too.”

There’s a pain that starts in the pit of her stomach traveling through her body as Peter holds her in his arms, Michelle savoring the moment because something within her lets her know that it can be the last time she feels the blanket of safety that comes with Peter. 

She slips out of his hold to pace around her room, pretending to not notice the slight fall of his eyes. He asks, “Parents last-minute shopping?”

Michelle snorts. “Yeah, always. You know how they are. Five days until Christmas and swarming the department stores with everyone else who procrastinated.”

“Christmas shopping sounds stressful,” he winces. “Luckily, I got my gift for you already.”

She turns around and squints. “You don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“But you do,” he shrugs. “I didn’t get you one last year, but you got me something for Hanukkah, remember? The–”

“Necklace, yeah,” she answers flatly. 

Peter blinks, fingers fiddling with the bottom of his chain, the dog tag with Ben’s name embossed hidden underneath his telekinetic t-shirt. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, turning back around, dragging her feet across the floor to sit on the edge of her bed. “I don’t-I don’t know.”

He follows her, placing himself softly by her side. Their thighs touch, and, even over the fabric, she misses what it’s like to be beneath these same sheets with him. She feels a shiver, the breeze coming in from the window left unopened and the view of the city’s horizon reminding MJ of the opportunities she’s yet to cease, the opportunities that might not come to her if she cages her heart in this one, tiny bedroom in Queens. 

Peter’s next words surprise Michelle despite the fact that she’s been creating the exact assumption in her head. “This semester has been hard, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she lets out. “That’s… I think we need to talk. About things.”

“About us?” he asks. He pushes closer into her, both of them fighting the longing feeling they’d been waiting for since they departed at the train station at the end of last summer. 

Things were different then. Hopeful. 

Hopefulness is a funny, fleeting feeling, Michelle thinks.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “About us.”

From her peripherals, she watches Peter nod, slowly at first then furiously rapid. “I had a feeling.”

“Since when?” 

“When your finals ended almost a week ago, but you didn’t want to come home until just a few days before Christmas.”

“Peter, that’s not–”

“It’s okay, Em. I get it. At least I think I do.” She hears the crack in his voice, the warmth that she felt before he walked inside slowly dwindling away like the wick of a candle reaching its end. “I can’t tell if it’s better that this doesn’t surprise me.”

Her ears rush with heated guilt. 

She’s never been more devastated to be right. 

He asks, “When did… when did you start having this feeling?”

Michelle sucks in her lips, licking them nervously. “You called me once during patrol. On accident. Maybe you landed on the ground and your suit dialed me or something, but I heard you getting hurt and… I just can’t handle being so far away from you and being afraid every single day, Peter.”

His hand lays gently on her thigh. She feels wrong for feeling the heat travel in between her legs. “I’m here with you. Right now.”

_It doesn’t feel like it._

“But we won’t be in a couple of weeks. For a long time. I have plans, you know? I can’t– I can’t center them around New York.” 

_Around you._

“I’m not asking that from you.”

“But I know you’d want that. And you deserve someone who can give you that.”

“MJ,” he tries. She doesn’t respond, her nose wrinkling as she attempts to hold back tears. “ _Michelle_.” The tears start to fall. “You’re the only person I ever think about.”

“That isn’t healthy,” she says.

“That’s not…”

“We’re young, Peter. We have so much of our lives ahead of us and,” she says, standing up again, ignoring Peter’s reach, their fingertips brushing before she steps away. “Maybe a break is okay. Maybe we’re meant to find ourselves before we…” She swings on her heels, witnessing the look on Peter’s face and feeling an immediate strike in her chest. Her throat feels thick and helpless. “I don’t know.”

He buries his face in the palm of his hands, elbows balancing on his thighs. He rubs his face quickly, shaking his head as if to wake up from a nightmare that MJ cast over him with no warning. 

“My chest hurts.”

_Because of me._

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to say it now because I looked at your face and I realized I missed you so much more than I let myself,” she mumbles, walking closer to him again, sinking to her knees to the floor as she places her arms on his thighs, looking up at him. “I was going to wait to tell you. We can still spend the weekend together, Peter. I just– I felt too guilty to keep this feeling to myself the entire time.”

“Spend the weekend, and then what? You leave? We’re done?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” she whispers, tucking her head in her arms. She feels his hands card through her hair, fingers massaging her scalp. 

His next breath is shaky. Silence, and then, “Okay.”

She looks up at him. He smiles at her. She asks, “Okay what?”

“Let’s just use this weekend to… to have a proper goodbye.” He brings one finger to her chin, lifting it up slowly. She follows his lead, lifting herself up from the carpet and leaning toward him, their lips touching once their faces are on the same level. 

MJ pulls away before their tongues meet saying, “I don’t want you to hate me, Peter.” 

“I’ll never hate you,” he declares, pulling her from the waist and into his lap. She places her legs on either side of him. 

“This isn’t a good idea,” she says, panting at the way she grinds down on him. “I’m okay with it, but only if you’re okay with it.”

He presses an open-mouthed kiss on her neck, as she throws her head back from the friction. He mumbles into her, “I’ve had a lot of bad ideas.” The warmth from Peter comes back, traveling from her heart and turning into electricity at her center. “We’re young, MJ.”

Peter’s grip on her waist becomes tighter as he shimmies up the bed pulling her with him, an action that’s been done many times before, but this time feels definitive – a new beginning that starts with a farewell. 

_Fuck it._

She lets herself go, the tension in her chest flying away, allowing herself to be a stupid young adult for once in her life, forgetting about the consequences that will follow shortly after the weekend ends. Right now, she doesn’t care about the fallout even though she should. Right now, she feels the magic in their kisses and every other bad thing is forgotten if only for a moment. 

“Peter,” she hisses as he bucks his hips against her. 

“What, babe?” he asks as he continues to devour her skin, covering her in the worship that she’s certain he’s been saving since he stood on the platform of the station and watched her train leave. “Tell me what you want.”

Before she starts, he stops his movements. “Your parents are home.”

“Shit,” she says, shuffling out of the bed, standing up, and patting her hair down. She stares at Peter, arms resting behind his back and smiling. “You have to go home!”

He chuckles, a teasing tune in his throat. “Okay, okay.”

Michelle hears her dad call out from the living room, “Chelle, we’re home! Come give us some love.”

Her cheeks fill with heat watching Peter’s grin double in size. She blinks at him idly. “What?”

He walks over to the open window, laughing. “Nothing.”

“We can continue this tomorrow,” she says, arms folded across her chest. He walks up to her again, his lips lightly pressing her nose, both of them avoiding the continuation of the conversation that led up to desperate kisses.

“I still have your gift,” he whispers. 

“MJ!” her dad calls again. 

“I have to go, Peter,” she mutters. 

“Okay, okay.” He stays still, and then he pulls her into a tight embrace, squeezing her softly as she feels him sniff her hair, and it takes everything within her to not break. He whispers, “Tomorrow.”

The angel on her shoulders continues to fight against it, continues to try to convince her to cut off the contact so she won’t have a hard time walking away. But the devil whispers promises in her ears that she knows won’t be kept–promises of still being friends, of civility after it’s all over. 

“Tomorrow,” she agrees, taking the devil’s side.

She watches him hop out of the balcony and disappear, and then the countdown of this sight begins, Michelle mentally preparing herself for the last time he’ll wave goodbye.

  
  
  


The weekend flies by, and that last time comes too quickly. 

They’re tangled in her bedsheets, beads of sweat on the edges of her face. He holds her from behind, and she feels protected, but she knows she can’t protect him when they’re apart. 

Their breaths are synchronized and heavy like the weight on her chest that never seems to leave. 

Peter’s the first to speak. “This is nice.”

_It was._

“Yeah,” she whispers, a sharp inhale attempting to remove the lodge that’s growing in her throat. Peter had snuck in again after saying goodbye to her parents for Christmas Eve dinner that both he and May have attended since they became neighbors freshman year of high school.

She feels his lips press against the valley between her shoulder blades. “I have your gift.”

Michelle breaks from his hold and faces him. 

“What is it?” she smiles softly, avoiding the sadness in Peter’s eyes. He turns around, diving over the edge of her bed as she hears a wrinkle of wrapping paper. It’s a small paper bag decorated with glittery snowflakes. 

“I realize now that you might not like it,” he says. “At least not anymore. So you don’t have to wear it or anything.”

She curses herself for almost forgetting about their agreement, still lost in the moment. 

Michelle holds her glare at the paper bag for a beat, refusing to look at Peter until she opens it, and maybe even after then.

Her hands slip through the tissue paper, fingers touching a chain and intricate glass. 

“Oh,” she breathes, heart pounding furiously in her chest, feeling more caged than ever. 

It’s her favorite flower. She looks up and frowns. “This looks expensive. I don’t know, Peter. It just doesn’t feel right knowing–”

“I can’t return it. And, um, I think keeping it for myself will hurt more.”

Her lips tremble as the black dahlia lies in the palm of her hands, shiny and new. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to,” he says, fingers brushing against the chain on her skin. “May I?” 

She nods, removing the sheets on the bed to sit up and turn around. She feels Peter’s hands travel across her skin to tuck her hair to the side. He brings the necklace to her front, wrapping it around her neck before clasping it. He kisses her shoulder and says, “Since you got me one last year. Call it even?”

MJ scoffs fondly. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?” 

When she turns around, she kisses him one more time, and this time their tongues take no time to find each other, twisting and dancing, desperately clinging onto each other.

His phone on the bedside table begins to blare like sirens. Michelle knows exactly what this means, laughing at the irony of their goodbye being cut off by the very thing that caused it in the first place. 

“Duty calls,” she says as he pulls away. 

He frowns. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

“I know,” she nods. “I have to go too, eventually. Back to Harvard.”

_And that’s why this can’t work anymore._

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “The necklace looks great on you. You look really pretty.”

“And therefore I have value?” she smirks at him. His cheeks flush. “I’m just messing with you.”

The alert keeps ringing, like an interruption that can’t be avoided. Peter grabs his clothes from the corner of her room, slipping them on quickly, his hair still tousled from their tryst in the sheets. 

With one leg out on the balcony and his body bent down to move through, Peter pauses. “I’m sorry. I…”

“Me too.” She walks over to him. 

“When are you leaving?” he asks. 

“Before New Year’s Eve, but I have to spend the rest of the time–”

“Upstate with your grandma.”

“Yeah,” she says, a tight-lipped grin across her face.

“Goodbye, MJ,” he says. “We’re still–”

“Friends,” she finishes his sentence, hearing the devil’s sinister laugh in the back of her head, feeling like a fool for making herself believe this to be true. 

“I love you,” he says. She bites the inside of her cheek. He shakes his head saying, “I’m sorry.”

The alert continues to ring, each blaring sound of the alarm intensifying. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

In one sudden movement, he’s out of her sight, crawling back into his apartment to change into his night shift attire. She sits back down at the edge of her bed, the lingering smell of Peter’s body still keeping her warm. 

And then her heart breaks entirely, a flood of hurt and anger bleeding through her veins like a necessary evil. 

And then she cries, and cries, and _cries_.

There’s a knock on her door, a soft sound that has the superpower to patch up any pain that Michelle feels. She catches her breath, “Mom?”

She hears a creak as the door swings open, her mom frowning with worry. “Baby, what’s wrong?” 

Her mother looks out at the open window and back to Michelle’s burning red eyes. “Peter came by again?”

Michelle nods, no longer fighting the urge to fall apart. Through her rough sobs she says, “I thought this was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.”

“Honey,” her mother whispers, pulling her into a hold, kissing the top of her head. “When you’re young… heartbreaks might feel like the end of the world, but you will learn to carry on. Whether or not things work out with Peter again. I promise.”

And those two simple words–the strength of this new promise from her mother–knocks down the heavy, conflicting feelings that have been weighing down Michelle’s shoulders. 

Her fingers trace the glass-cut necklace, cradled in her mother’s arms, still soaking in this goodbye knowing that the next time the holidays come around, nothing between her and Peter will feel the same.


	2. lights are turned way down low

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here! Chapter Two. 
> 
> _68\. Winter power outage_

ii. _nineteen_

It starts with a fond memory. 

Michelle’s hands are shoved deep into the pockets of the winter coat she’s owned since she was fourteen, still never learning her lesson to bring gloves when you’re last-minute shopping for Christmas. 

She’s with her older brother, his gloved hands waving in the air as he attempts to describe the kitchen appliance that Dad wants as a gift. “I don’t get it. We basically have all the appliances and tools in the world.”

“Jason, you know they’re obsessed,” Michelle laughs. “Mom wants Chanel No. 5 - as if I don’t have only $400 dollars to my name.”

“You’re a sophomore trying to pay rent,” he says. “I can pay for most of it. Give me $20 and grade my students’ essays for me or something.”

“Deal.” 

They enter Macy’s, Michelle wincing at the crowded Junior section, still surprised at what she’d been preparing herself for on their way to the store. Her palms start feeling clammy from the sudden shift in temperature. As she and Jason make their way up the escalator to the second floor, MJ’s eyes dart to a Star Wars themed section. 

Is there another trilogy out already? 

She stops Jason from hopping onto the next escalator to the kitchen department. Immediately, he sighs as he says, “Chelle…”

“I’m just looking,” she says.

“Fine, fine.”

She runs her fingers through the fabrics of graphic t-shirts, making her way to the little trinkets and figurines that children under five might accidentally swallow. Under the pile of new characters inside their toy boxes, she sees a Lobot figurine.

MJ smiles. 

_He showed up on their doorstep, a bouquet in hand, ready for their date._

_“Hey,” he said, blush on his face._

_“Hi,” she said. “For me?”_

_He scratched the back of his head, a tell that MJ would soon be able to weed out as a sign of nerves. “Yeah.”_

_They held hands throughout the streets of New York, warm and a little sweaty, but comfortable. Peter led her to a restaurant that she always walked past on her way to volunteer at the children’s hospital._

_She stopped. “This is expensive.”_

_“It is, but don’t worry.”_

_“Peter.”_

_“I promise it’s okay.”_

_“We can just get pizza.”_

_“MJ, it’s fine. I…” he turned around and faced her, holding both her hands in his — the touch of his fingers intertwined with hers still shiny and new. “I sold some collectibles. The Star Wars ones. For this date.”_

_“Peter,” she let out. “You didn’t have-”_

_“I wanted to,” he interrupted her, smiling. “I even sold my favorite. The Lobot one… It was kinda hard, but we’re graduating next year anyway, and it was time.”_

_“Dork.”_

_“I’ll still get that even without my toys, huh?”_

_She looked at him, and tears welled up in her eyes, the feeling of joy in her body and the youthful innocence that she didn’t know would run out._

_“Always.”_

Before she knows it, she’s at the register making a purchase. 

“Chelle…” Jason warns her again. 

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“I saw something, thought of him, and bought it. Wouldn’t you want to have that feeling? That someone thinks about you?”

“Yeah, but do you think he thinks about you, too?”

She hands the cashier her card, now only $380.66 to her name. She shrugs as she grabs the bag from over the counter, shoving the receipt inside. “He got me a present last year. I’m just returning the favor.”

They head to the third floor as Michelle ignores the echo of Jason’s question in her head, an aching feeling trying to fight the fondness that comes from the way she hasn’t stopped thinking about Peter since their last text exchange in June when he found out she wasn’t coming back to Queens.

Her grip on the shopping bag gets tighter.

  
  
  


Michelle wraps the gift carefully with old _Daily Bugle_ articles because Peter will find it funny. She hasn’t texted him yet. There’s a running risk that comes with pressing send. She’d gotten used to it—to life without interacting with Peter despite so badly wanting to—and, if she were to see him, she knows she’ll be back to square one. 

The little toy covered with makeshift wrapping paper mocks her in the corner of the room. 

She plops onto her bed, remembering to send Jason her share of their parents’ Christmas present as well as a reminder to bring his hard drive of essays on Christmas Eve so she can grade the (last minute) final papers his students sent. For a moment, she rests her eyes, inhaling the damp air of her chilly bedroom and listening intently to the sounds of the city vibrating through her single-pane window. 

For a beat, she forgets why she wanted to leave so badly. There are taxi cabs honking furiously at one another. A dumpster truck beeping in the alley. A crowd of angry commuters yelling. She doesn’t want to admit it, but the symphony of this little street in Queens is _home_.

The next time she opens her eyes, her ceiling lights flicker once, then three times before fusing out completely. Michelle furrows her eyebrows, glaring at the bulbs as if her directed anger will fix the problem. She groans, pushing herself from the bed to check out the outdated fuse box of her apartment.

When she walks out, her dad’s already there, shining a flashlight trapped in between his teeth, and investigating. 

“Come here, ‘Chelle, I need you to take a look,” he instructs her as if her last science class wasn’t in high school. 

She listens, sliding through the wooden floor of her hallway and nearly slipping, using her dad’s shoulder for leverage. 

“I have no idea what any of this means, Dad.”

He grumbles. “How did we fix the lights when they were broken before?”

Michelle opens her mouth, closes it, and hesitates once more before answering, “We asked Peter.”

“Well.” 

“Yeah.”

“Still broken up?” he jokes, and for as outspoken as Michelle is—for as much as she wants to tell her father that the pain from breaking up with Peter hasn’t (and probably won’t) leave—she stays quiet. His phone rings, saving him from Michelle’s glare. “Hello? He what? There’s what? Did you evacuate the subway ok? Which streets are blocked off?”

“What’s going on?” she asks. He doesn’t answer, still mumbling into the phone, but from the anxiety creeping into her body and the words _evacuate, and Spider-Man, and trouble_ , she knows there’s a city-wide emergency. 

He finishes the phone call with, “Be safe. Avoid being too close to that guy… danger will follow.” 

Michelle purses her lips, holding back the guilt of knowing exactly who her father’s talking about, knowing that it’s not the villain Spider-Man is fighting. 

When her dad hangs up the phone, he tilts his head in the same comforting way Michelle can always remember. “Mom’s gonna be okay. It’s a power outage.” He gestures to the box. 

“Cool,” she mumbles. 

“At least you don’t have to worry about Peter,” he offers, chuckling in an innocent way, unaware of the weight that comes with a city-wide emergency caused by Spider-Man. 

She can’t even turn on the news to find out. 

With her hands balled in fists of worry, she slides to their living room, sitting quietly on the couch facing the black TV screen. She can feel her father’s eyes on her as she moves through the room. The feeling is all too familiar, her mind time traveling back to biting her nails at the local news, body shaking with fear. 

It’s funny how one memory causes a crack in the walls of her heart, and others flood through to create an ocean of vulnerability. 

She’s never told her parents about how she dated Spider-Man, but when her dad asks her if she wants hot chocolate because the heater’s powered out, there’s a soothing sound to his voice: one of knowing, one of _love_ – both arguably two sides of the same coin. 

In just ten minutes her hands are wrapped around a mug of comfort and extra marshmallows. Her dad sits on the love seat, scrolling through his phone, mumbling updates here and there, name dropping a new bad guy named Electro, the source of the power outage. 

Michelle whispers to herself. “I hope he’s okay.”

Her father doesn’t hear her over the chaos reverberating inside and outside of their apartment building, the sounds that felt like a chorus of home now filled with deafening terror as their phones continue to spew alerts and updates of the fight. 

There’s a sudden knock on the door, her father standing up with caution, sneaking to the entrance of their apartment. When he swings it open, Mr. Nguyen from down the hall frowns. He says, “You got an extra set of flashlights, Frank? My grandkids are freaking out cause it’s too dark.”

The two go into a full out conversation, her dad’s bellowing laugh echoing through the quiet of their living room. “Your daughter brought the kids over for the holidays?”

“Yep, they’re both starting high school soon.” 

Their voices become distant as Michelle quietly escapes the potential social interaction her dad might force her into, pretending to not hear the way he brags about Michelle being on the Dean’s list after her first year at Harvard. 

She cringes at the comment as the creak of her door greets her like an old friend.

Slowly, she shuts the door behind her as she automatically heads to the window, grabbing her hoodie on the way out.

Michelle tells herself she’s sitting on the balcony for fresh air and for nothing else, especially not for a boy in a red and blue skin-tight suit. She stuffs her hands in the pocket of her jacket, eyes scanning the alley for no one in particular.

Her eyes start to drift away, and if it weren’t for the icy breeze needling her skin, she could fall asleep just as she would when she’d take a break from studying for the SAT’s in high school. 

It’s strange, the way she comes back home and finds herself in between a stage of young and old, a liminal space that she can’t quite describe – the only idea Michelle can understand is that every time she’s here, her heart pulls her in stronger like there’s an untapped message she can’t quite decode. 

Just as she’s about to give up on waiting, not sure how many half hours have passed by, just as she lifts herself up to crawl back into her window, she hears a hard slam against the brick of their building. She’s startled, body frozen like ice because before her eyes, lies a battered up Spider-Man swinging directly onto her balcony. 

He groans, hands gripping the skin of his stomach – his suit no longer being able to be described as such because of the torn-up fabric. 

“Shit,” Peter says, coughing, eyes still closed. Michelle realizes he probably doesn’t notice her in the other corner of the balcony, his senses always damaged and awry after a bad fight. 

And this one looks real bad.

She clears her throat, grabbing his attention. When his eyes flutter open, his mouth drops with zero subtlety. “Oh.”

“Hi.”

He lays still on the floor, though his pain looks as if it’s subsided in the blink of an eye. 

A part of Michelle hopes it’s because she’s there or whatever.

She asks, “Are you...good?” 

It’s a stupid question, and she knows Peter’s stupid answer.

“Yeah–uh,” Peter groans again, trying to lift himself from the ground. She offers a hand, though she knows his strength will just drag her down with him. He waves her off, his hand landing on the railing of the balcony to get some leverage. “There’s a giant gash in my stomach. But I’m fine.”

“I can tell from the blood on my balcony floor,” she walks closer to him, her fight or flight still battling on which response she should use. 

“I’m sorry,” he frowns. “Everything looks kinda blurry. I got punched in the face.”

“I can also tell,” she points out his black eye. He shrugs, a trying smile. 

“It is what it is,” he says. A beat. With his bruised eyes, he meets her gaze. “I–uh–I’m sorry for landing in here.”

“It’s okay,” she shrugs. “It’s not the first time this has happened.”

Michelle feels like she’s experiencing a memory, an excerpt from her old journals buried underneath her bed. There’s only one solution for this, one that will clear her mind from the worries that sprouted from the beginning power outage – one that she knows will make her calm down, even if she doesn’t know the consequences that will come from it.

She says, “I have my emergency aid kit in my room. And steady fingers.”

Peter leans against the railing, one leg limp. “Oh, no. I’m fine. I don’t want to be a burden or anything. I’ll just lie in my bed until–”

He hisses from his sudden movements. She tries again, “It’s okay with me.”

“Really?” his voice is soft, with the slightest twist of pain.

“If it’s okay with you. You’re not...” she whispers. “You’re not a burden, Peter.”

He nods his head, arm reaching out for hers, leaning against her body and although she can’t exactly carry his muscle mass with ease, she pushes him through the window, ignoring the deep thud of the floor and hoping her dad’s taking his evening nap. 

She follows him, legs walking over his body as she enters her walk-in closet looking for the kit. 

Everything that happens afterward is muscle memory: landing the kit next to Peter, tucking in a towel beneath his body where the gash runs the deepest, cutting his suit open wider, and soaking pads of alcohol to clean up the mess before she threads the needle through his black and blue splattered skin.

And just as her hands remember how to weave up and down to patch Peter up, her heart remembers the sinking feeling in her stomach from the nights he’d crash her late night studying (doodling). 

Michelle starts to recall why it aches to be home: the bundle of hurt and confusion that comes from Michelle so badly wanting to be there for Peter––to patch him up, to save him––but being too wrapped in him that neglects her own hurt. 

She ignores it, focusing on cleaning up the dried blood she initially missed.

“All better,” she says. 

“Thanks,” he smiles, an exasperated breath escaping his lips. He sits up from the floor, squinting back at the stains. She doesn’t shy away from scanning his body, seeing the way he’s grown since last year. “I don’t think the towel caught all the blood.”

Michelle swallows, a lump in her throat. “That’s-that’s from high school.”

“Oh,” he says, turning around only to be inches away from her face. Michelle can feel the air that blows out from his nose, both of their breaths deep with nerves. She knows this feeling like the back of her hand: a feeling of desire and nerves wrapped together like she’s about to have her first kiss with him all over again.

His lips feel like a magnet, Michelle feeling her body reeling in closer and closer, their noses brushing slightly until she pulls away. “Do you want to know something funny?”

“Okay,” he says, watching her get up quickly to run to the corner of her room where she tossed the little box wrapped in newspapers. 

“I actually...thought about you today.”

 _Every day_ , she thinks. 

Peter’s quiet, still on the floor with a curious look in his eyes, hopeful and familiar. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. She tosses the box, and with his quick reflexes, he catches the package in one hand, and Michelle never fails to remember how easily he heals from wounds, how his muscles start to function soon after his injuries, physical pain disappearing as if it was never there. The same doesn’t go for her. 

He lifts his brow, teasing. “I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“I know,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I just saw it and thought of you. It’s not a Christmas gift.”

The gaze on Peter’s face is bright and shiny, lighting up in the darkness of her room as the sun goes down and the sky casts a glowing blue. When he sees the toy through the plastic box, Michelle can almost see his heart melt, but can’t tell if it’s good or bad.

“You remembered,” he says.

“Always.”

He looks up at her from the floor, taking extra strength to stand up and walk to her, pulling her in an embrace she hadn’t been ready for. His arms fit perfectly around her waist, a tight hold allowing her to sink into his body. It feels right. It feels like nothing ever went wrong. 

“I love it. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything, MJ.”

“It’s nothing,” she shrugs. “Just something for a friend.”

His throat cracks. “Yeah...yeah.”

She doesn’t tell him how she’s wearing the necklace he gave her, or how she wears it every day and only takes it off in the shower. It’s rough around the edges after a year of use, but the more worn down it becomes, the more she loves it. 

It’s inevitable, Peter making her feel like she’s fifteen all over again, watching him from the sidelines, sticking on the walls just like him. 

Her fingers fiddle with each other. She shivers, walking over to the open window, wondering when the city-wide outage will fix itself. 

“Does your gash still hurt?” she asks.

He tilts his head, _thinking_ about the question instead of responding with how his body really feels. “I think I can at least crawl to my window.”

Her disappointment hides behind a thin wall of aloofness despite knowing that Peter can see right through her—that he can probably hear her heart jumping out of her chest. “If you need to heal, you can stay.”

Peter pulls a tight-lipped and toothless grin. “Now that I think about it, my ribs still feel sore.”

“Maybe we–you can lie down.” Michelle curls the corner of her lip. “It’s cold and dark because I heard some vigilante fought a light bulb today.”

“Maybe I will,” he laughs, walking over to the left side of the bed – the usual side. He leaves his not-gift on the side table. Before Michelle follows him, she walks back to her closet, grabbing an old sleeping shirt and sweats for him to change onto. After throwing them to Peter, she watches him change as she crawls under the blankets, waiting for him.

When he lays himself down, their bodies are close together, facing one another. She shivers underneath the sheets. He asks, “Are you cold?”

“Yeah,” she says. “No heater, obviously.”

He shakes his head. “That damn menace.”

“You said it, not me.”

They gaze into each other’s eyes for a while, so close but so far. She doesn’t–she _shouldn’t_ –lean forward. 

But Peter does. 

And their lips press against one another, soft and light. 

She pulls away. “This is a bad idea.”

A weak laugh comes out of him. “I haven’t heard that before.”

“Peter,” she frowns. “The last time this happened… I didn’t want you to leave, and a part of me wanted you to convince me to stay so bad. And-and I know that, if this happens again… it’s going to be as hard as it was when I left.”

A beat. Peter sighs. “Do you know how hard it was finding out you weren’t coming back for the summer? Through someone else?”

She licks her lips nervously. She knows it was wrong to cut him off – to not tell him about the internship she landed in Boston. “I guess we’re both hurt here.”

“There’s nothing better than two friends consoling each other after being hurt.”

Friends. Just friends. That’s what they are, and even though his hands are placed on her waist as he pulls her in closer for another sweet kiss, friends are all they’ll be for now. 

Their tongues move together in harmony, and when Michelle slips out of his mouth she says, “I have so much to figure out still, Peter.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Michelle wants to tell him that this is the warmest she’s felt since last Christmas. She wants to tell him that it feels so right being in his arms, and that she wishes everything could work out – that she could figure out who she has yet to be already, that she can come back a new person – someone who has the strength to match Peter’s.

She misses him so much, all the time, _always._

But she doesn’t say anything other than, “Just stay with me for a while?”

Wordlessly, he answers with a kiss on her forehead. She sees exhaustion in his eyes, the hitch of his breath becoming deeper as his eyes start to close. He’d always either be wide awake or knock out quickly – no in between.

Michelle watches him drift quickly into unconsciousness, and she whispers. “Thank you.”

When she wakes up, Peter’s no longer in front of her. Her lights are bright, the city’s back in business, and–from the way the heater’s running–she knows the power’s been turned on for a while, but she still feels shivers down her spine because her twin bed never felt so empty.

She lifts herself up, sitting upright, only for her to see her t-shirt folded neatly on the foot of the bed.

And it ends with this memory.


	3. if we can make it through december

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Promptmas:
> 
> _78\. Apart for the holidays_

iii. _twenty_

Michelle finds herself in the city faster this year, driving wordlessly to the low sound of the radio, a Christmas ballad humming through the nearly busted speakers of the used truck she bought at the beginning of the semester.

Both hands gripped at 10 and 2, her eyes stay focused on the empty road ahead of her. Snow is shoveled out of the streets, the muddy street tracking a mess in her tires. She’d purchased the vehicle in Cambridge—a license plate registered in the state of Massachusetts—which, for MJ, only meant another leap further away from Queens.

She lets go of the wheel with her right hand, grabbing the lukewarm coffee from the cupholder, sipping the last ounce of caffeine and scrunching her face at the taste despite expecting the bad flavor the moment she picked up the cup. Michelle has just finished her last final for her first Feminist Studies upperdivison course, an exam she pulled an all-nighter for, and now, she’s racing back home.

At some point between adolescence and adulthood, the special holiday feeling has faded away, lingering like the old perfume she used to buy at the sales rack at Macy’s. She can’t name when the season’s feelings shifted, but every December without fail, she comes back to Queens and dusts off the untouched hurt off her shelf.

There’s about an hour and a half of driving left to get to Elmhurst Hospital, Michelle yawning—open mouthed and shameless—to fight the sleep-deprivation that comes from the bad news that’s haunted her for three days.

Her mom and dad called her as she was finishing research paper in the library, sunrise creeping on the horizon and slowly seeping into the floor-to-ceiling windows of the seventh floor. She wishes she didn’t answer, but deep in her heart she knows it would only delay the inevitable.

Her Grandma is sick. 74 years of life in her belt, and she’s fighting breast cancer.

Michelle sighs.

She has never been able to dealt with the feeling that comes from knowing there’s an end nearby.

Close calls, low vitals, hints of memory loss—those Michelle has experienced—but Peter has always bounced back, has always healed as quickly as he gets damaged.

Her grandma is human, and so is Michelle and her family. They can’t heal magically, not from cancer or bruised bones or insurmountable grief.

 _C’est la vie_ , she thinks.

Funny how ironic that phrase is.

Funny how her heart feels like ice in the way it freezes up when she looks at how close she is to the place she used to call home.

Michelle’s first instinct is to call someone. Anyone, she presumes, who can help her through this.

She paces outside of the hospital room where Grandma’s staying, cooling down from the conversation she had with Dr. Graham about the amount of tests they’ll have to do to determine whether or not it’s safe to remove the tumor in her breast.

Fingers shaking, tapping rapidly on her thigh as she walks up and down the hallway, Michelle grabs her phone and scrolls to one of the people she knows will be there for her, despite not having reached out as much as she should have been for the past three years. Her thumb hovers over the name. She gives this decision thought, a debate in the shape of turmoil within her soul. He’ll understand. He always understands.

She taps the name and the call starts.

One ring. Another.

Several more.

Voicemail. _Hey you’ve reached Ned. The beep’s coming, you know what to do._

Michelle is frozen, but she doesn’t hang up. She wonders if the phone will end the call automatically if she continues to breathe silence into the speaker. She runs her free hand through her hair, wrinkling her nose from the oil that’s built up from not washing it to maximize free time for studying.

“Hey-hey, Leeds. It’s Michelle. MJ. I know this-um-I know this is really, really random, but—” she sighs, tilting her head back and closing her eyes as her lips tremble “—I don’t… I don’t know who else I can talk to and you know you’ve always been a homie and…”

A sudden regret fills her stomach, traveling to her throat, thick and worried.

“You know what? Never mind, forget I called. It’s.. it’s dumb. Happy holidays.”

She hangs up, tucking her phone in her pocket. Her back finds the wall, and she sinks down slowly, landing on the cheap linoleum of the hospital floor. Several heart monitors are beating at a steady pace. The vending machine drops a bag of chips. Loose tears trail down Michelle’s face.

Maybe she can call Peter, and maybe Peter will come to her and comfort her because he’s a good person.

Michelle doesn’t want to do that to him. Not anymore. She has kept a promise to herself to not intrude on his life anymore—not to come back and break down his walls again after an entire year of radio silence. She’d like to talk to him, she really would, but their conversations reduced to likes on Instagram posts, and back in April, her roommate told her that building a friendship is a two-way street.

Even though she walked away, she left the door open for him to follow as far as he could with the relationship she offered him after their breakup: a friendship, one of understanding that, despite the time and distance, the communication can still be the same—much like what she thinks she has with Ned, who still comments on her blog posts that no one else pays attention to.

Peter doesn’t do that. Peter doesn’t talk to her. He double taps the screen to remind Michelle of his existence, and her own thoughts haunt her to a point where she’s built her own barricade against him.

A two way street turned into one, long road not taken by either of them.

Her dad steps out of the room, she can tell by the squeaky loafers that graze the floor. She doesn’t lift her head that’s buried in her arms, but she feels a body sink down next to her.

He rests his head on her shoulder. “Chelle.” She sniffles. No response except a soft press of her shoulder closer to him. “It’s gonna be okay. She’s in an early stage.”

“You never know.”

Her dad sighs, lifting himself upright. She takes a peek above her arms and watches as legs walk down the hallway, slowing down in front of her, but Michelle doesn’t care about how she and her dad look right now. He says, “I do know. Dr. Graham said it’s hopeful right now. That it’s good how Ma has annual checkups.”

“It’s just,” Michelle finally lifts her entire face backup, the fluorescent, bleak light of the hospital making the mood feel eerie. “I’m scared. I don’t want to... to lose her.”

He frowns. He wraps one arm around her, pulling her close. She feels protected, a shield of warmth surrounding her. A shield that she’s missed for a while, only realizing now that it had been gone.

Maybe she should call Mom and Dad more often.

Maybe she shouldn’t have extended her stay in Cambridge long enough to re-register as a Massachusetts citizen.

She hears the shake in her dad’s voice, one that only comes when uncertainty falls upon them—like Michelle was eight and lost in the mall, but she overheard her dad in the speakers from the store telling her to meet him in the front.

Finally, he breaks the silence.

“Me neither, Chelle.” He takes a deep breath. “Me neither.”

Dr. Graham creeps out of the hospital room. “Frank?”

He gets up, a slight look of embarrassment from being found on the floor. He clears his throat. “Yes, Dr. Graham?”

They move away, far enough so that Michelle can’t hear their conversation. She wishes she had super hearing like Peter. Then again, maybe the truth is easier to hide from right now.

To buy time, she pulls out her phone—battery life decreasing to 9% because she forgot to charge it overnight and her used truck doesn’t have a fancy USB port like the new cars do. With hope, she peeps at her inbox, but nothing has changed; the last message is still the one from her mom telling her where the room is in the hospital.

She definitely scared Ned.

She doesn’t expect a response from him, but a part of her has the urge to explain herself again over text. Her insecurities wash over her like waves on a high tide.

She shuts her phone off, but not before sending:

_Hey I’m all good. Dw about it Leeds. Sorry for the call_

Oh, she’s embarrassing. The warmth on her cheeks becomes a full distraction until she sees Frank’s hand held out in front of her. She grabs it, and he helps pull her up.

He repeats the news that Grandma will be in the hospital through Christmas, and maybe New Year’s Day, just to be safe. Their tradition of going upstate and meeting up with her extended family is cancelled and—as draining it is to constantly debate political issues with her dad’s white side—something about the cancelled plans shatters her heart even more.

Just another snowfall pile of old childhood memories plowed away.

Frank snaps her away from her intrusive thoughts. “You want me to make hot chocolate after we pick up Mom from work?”

Michelle tries to smile, turning back a beat to eye the door to her Grandma’s room, wishing that she could sleep there throughout her entire break and never leave her side. She turns away knowing that doing that to herself wouldn’t be the best idea, even if Michelle’s list of bad ideas is endless.

Jason flies home from Chicago the next morning, his loud knock on the door alerting Michelle and—having had developed a keen sense of alertness from dating a superhero—she wakes up immediately.

Her body is stiff, eyes sore from sobbing with her mom until three in the morning, sobbing until the tears wore her down. Her own tears put her to sleep immediately, too exhausted to focus on the person on the other side of her bedroom wall to stay up any later—even if the thought fades back in her head the next day.

MJ’s family has always been strong, a force of bravery stringing through all of them, passed down from their genetic makeup. Jason doesn’t cry when he finally settles his luggages in his old room and sees Michelle’s bloodshot eyes. Her dad hasn’t cried, save for the initial phone call from when the news first broke. Her mom only cries when Michelle cries, which had never been a common occurrence until she moved away from her family.

Moved away from her old pals.

From Peter.

She hates it—the way he occupies her mind so seamlessly despite using her entire brain power to wipe him away from the crevices of her heart that only he used to have a way in. It appears that he doesn’t have a way out, either.

Halfway through picking the blueberries scattered on top of her pancakes, Jason carefully places his mug down. “Is your phone broken?”

“No,” she furrows her eyebrows. “Why?”

“My on my way message never delivered.” He pouts, and Michelle only remembers now that she still hasn’t charged her phone. Maybe it’s good for her, to ghost and never see the stupid message she sent to Ned.

Michelle starts to explain herself until she realizes Jason’s too distracted by his own screen to listen for an explanation. He says, “God, I hate when O-M-W turns into an excited sentence. I’m not that excited.”

She pops a blueberry in her mouth, cringing that she picked a very sour tasting batch. “It’s not a very exciting time for our family anyway.”

Jason asks, “How you holding up?”

“I’m...not really.” Michelle takes a deep breath, pinching her nose with the sticky syrup fingers she hasn’t washed yet. “I tried to reach out to someone, but it didn’t work out.”

His eyes narrow at her. “Peter?”

“No.”

Jason doesn’t believe her. He probably shouldn’t, given the past two years she’s come back and completely ruined her plans to move on by seeing him. She doesn’t see the need to explain herself more, feeling like she’d be playing a losing game trying to convince her brother and herself that she’s moved on completely.

Still, she makes not seeing Peter a big point during this break, and she holds the promise very well—even when her phone is finally charged and she sees a message from not just Ned, but the person she’s so desperately trying to avoid thinking about.

_are you in town?_

Michelle blinks, feeling astonished and shocked despite the suspicion that Peter would be messaging her this month.

She doesn’t respond. In fact, she deletes the message, along with the other string of old conversations dated in the past year that she’d initially been so desperate to hold onto.

Her motivation to forget, to move on, and to run away as far as possible from Queens starts to look more like a promise to herself that she can keep.

Instead, Michelle focuses on reconnecting with Ned, replying to his messages of concern and listening to his voicemail of wanting to make plans.

After another visit to the hospital, Michelle weaves her way throughout the city again—subway stations and streets feeling unfamiliar yet striking something within her soul.

She suggests the coffee shop just one exit away from the station by her apartment; it’s the place she, Ned, and Peter used to take refuge in during finals and SAT prep. It’s the place where Peter would order her Americano with two shots of espresso and his vanilla latte—extra syrup if he was able to afford it.

Michelle curses when water seeps into her old boots, promising herself to finally buy new ones as a gift because five years with the same pair has worn her down and has now frozen up the balls of her feet.

She soaks in the blinding sunlight in the sky, the crisp air sliding across the skin on her face. It’s freezing, windows frosted and snow shoveled away from yesterday’s first snowfall.

Her hands are deep in her pockets, debating whether or not to face the chilly breeze so she can text Ned she’s almost there—just five minutes away.

She’s early (she’s always early), so she decides to text him right before entering the store.

A kid, just about 13 years old, bumps into her, quickly excusing himself with wide, worried eyes after she shifts her gaze down on him.

He runs back to his friend, and Michelle realizes they’d been having a snowball war on the sidewalk. Her heart swells when she watches their hands intertwine as they walk away before apologizing one more time.

Michelle smiles. “It’s okay.”

Finally, she reaches the coffee shop.

She pauses in her tracks, leaning against the wall with her shoulder pressed against the high windows and pulls out her phone.

_here! take your time_

Despite being cold, she opts to wait for him outside, something coiling in her stomach like a warning sign.

And when she turns around and peeks through the windows, she understands why she feels this way.

There, through the frosted glass of her favorite coffee shop, sits Peter Parker—head thrown back, charming and childish—laughing at someone Michelle can only assume is a date.

Her hair is sleek and silver, posture so straight that Michelle can feel the confidence exuding from the woman without even putting a face to the back she’s staring at.

Her heart shatters, more so than it has since coming home yesterday.

She doesn’t break her gaze. She squints, even. Then she sees the way Peter has dry foam on his top lip and his eyes lighting up like the New Year’s Ball.

It hits her then: she doesn’t remember the last time he’s smiled like that, genuine and full, in years.

She needs to leave immediately, but her legs don’t let her. She hovers outside, still watching as his date leans in closer, Michelle being grateful that the tables against the window are blocking their legs beneath their booth.

Then, Peter looks up.

They meet eyes.

His smile fades into worry, and in this exact moment—birds chirping at breadcrumbs next to her, the wind picking up its speed, and bells jingling as a customer exits the shop—Michelle realizes that everything between them has changed.

When he stands up from his seat, Michelle turns around, walking in the other direction from where she came. She dials Ned’s number quickly for a change in location, but as the phone continues to ring there isn’t an answer on the other line. Curse Ned for always having the habit of keeping his phone on silent.

She stops walking before turning the corner when she hears, “Michelle.”

 _Ouch_.

He says, “Wait. I-I asked you if you were in town.”

Without turning around, but feeling the presence of Peter’s body nearby, she says, “Well, here’s your answer.”

“Yeah,” he says.

She shuts her eyes. “See you later, Peter.”

“Wait!” He stops her from walking. “I just want to say—she’s—”

His sentence prompts her to turn around forcefully, training her eyes to look dark and aloof all at once. “If I wanted to know, I would have asked.”

She stares directly into his eyes. He blinks. Silence. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she says. “Bye, Peter.”

He rubs the back of his neck, a look mixed with awkward and uncomfortable etched on his face.

Even in such an awful situation, Michelle hates that she finds home in his body language—like something in the way he moves tells her that this pain is only temporary.

She hopes and hopes and hopes that he’ll make her stay. Maybe he’ll explain himself even though she knows that he doesn’t have to. Maybe he’ll hold her in his arms. Maybe this is it—the moment in Hallmark holiday movies where the protagonist gets what they want.

But he doesn’t.

Michelle isn’t even the hero in this film, and the ending wouldn’t be good if this is the way it has to be.

Peter pulls a tight-lipped grin. His cheeks are already red from standing out for just about five minutes, even though it feels like an agonizing eternity.

“Bye, Michelle.”

She leaves.

And if she would have turned around, Michelle would have witnessed a stiff-standing Peter, watching her walk away.


	4. we should all be together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Promptmas:  
>  _31\. Outsider POV_

iv. _twenty-one_

Ned hums along with the tune to Santa Baby by Ariana Grande, headphones thin and close to snapping in half, the sound playing through his ears as if underwater. He happily rolls up the lumpia, tucking in the meat with lumpia sheets and folding it snug, ready to be deep-fried for their Bueno Noche meal. 

He, his mother, and his sister go all out every year, breaking out the parole and hanging it along with the fire escape that opens to the living room. Ned smiles as he watches it glow in the early, dark evening—folding lumpia into rolls that Mama will cook for all of them before midnight. 

It’s warm, the air inside their living room humid as all spots on their stoves are filled up, the aromas mixing with one another and traveling into his nose. He’s ready to celebrate. More than ready.

Life as an Adult has just been...different. 

It’s not like the old days—the days when Peter and Ned would hang around robotics after school and sneak out tools to hack into Peter’s suits, or when Peter had gotten more used to combat. They worked together. 

Ned is the Guy in Chair. Always.

But Ned is also Michelle’s best friend, and ever since she’d left him a shell-shocking voicemail last year, he keeps her on his radar of people to check on. Sure, she disappears—she’s mentioned that before—and she wants to find herself before committing to one place, but Ned feels the warmth around MJ whenever they see each other. That’s enough to know in his gut that she and Peter are meant to work things out. They just have to.

Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but Ned expects it to happen. He can wait as long as he wants. He has faith in them, even if he doesn’t let himself say anything to either of them during his respective hangouts over winter break. 

He finishes the last lumpia wrap and pats his hands over the trash can he moved from the back of the kitchen. His little sister, Nicole, continues to wrap the meat carelessly and at a much slower pace, pout painted across her face. “I’m hungry.”

“We’re gonna eat soon,” Ned says. “Be patient. Or wrap faster.”

“Okay,” she says, wide-eyed with a kind of curiosity that feels too familiar to Ned. “I don’t get why we always have this much food for just us.” 

It’s always been him and his little family: his mother and little sister. 

Just the three of them in Queens as his father remains in the provinces back in the Philippines, a country he’d spent no less than four years in but can still remember how it feels to walk barefoot on the black cement in the neighborhood, chasing the sago’t gulaman man that belts at the top of his lungs every morning at 7am sharp. 

In New York, Ned wakes up to the sound of trains rushing through the neighborhood. Just as bright and early, but never as sweet.

Still, he takes a deep breath and says, “Food is a part of our celebration. Plus, do you ever think Ma would let any of this go to waste?” 

Nicole laughs. “We’ll be having leftovers for the next week and a half.”

“Exactly,” he says, finishing the last lumpia. He stands up from the dinner table, grabbing the tray of uncooked lumpia and leaving it by the stove for his mom fry. 

His phone buzzes.

**Peter:** You playing _Beast Slayer_ tonight?

 **Ned:** Yeah dude. Gonna kick your ass

 **Peter:** Bet. 

**Peter:** But if you win never mind

 **Ned:** Lol

  
  


Later, after they finish all of the cooking prep, before dinner time and opening presents, Ned logs onto his game, setting up a call with Peter. 

“ _Hey,”_ Peter answers quickly, surprising Ned for how on time his best friend is. There’s something up, Ned’s certain, because playing video games is a way to escape the harsh reality that Peter faces. If Peter logs on fast, then Ned has to know why. 

“What’s wrong, Peter?” 

“ _Nothing! Nothing. I just wanted to play already that’s all. Been waiting_.”

“Sorry man–”

“ _No, I didn’t mean it like that at all, Ned_.” Peter sighs. 

“Wanna tell me what’s really up?” Ned pushes. 

“ _It’s just. She’s usually here during the holidays and. It just sucks that I don’t know_.”

Peter and MJ’s relationship is more strained than Ned thought, never wanting to pry into their lives like a bad friend who meddles into other people’s relationships. But sometimes he sees the spark in Peter’s eye whenever he hears the name MJ, and sometimes Ned catches MJ scrolling through breaking news when Spider-Man’s out in combat. 

They still care about each other. 

Why else would Peter want to run away from real life so quickly tonight?

“Yeah,” Ned says. He knows Michelle is home. They have plans. She has something big to tell him. She sounded nervous on the phone, but he decided to wait until seeing her in person before assuming anything. “It’s okay to be nervous. It’s okay to think about her.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Peter mumbles. “ _I guess. It’s just–I think about her all the time, Ned. Not just now. It’s stronger now because I know she could be just next door, but… a part of me–”_

“–doesn’t want to let her go?” Ned finishes Peter’s thought. 

“ _Exactly_.”

“Do you ever think about reaching out to her?”

“ _Me? Hell no. I’ll mess everything up more than I already probably have. She hates me._ ”

_She doesn’t. She asks about you a lot. But she begs me not to tell you because she doesn’t want to make it Another Thing._

Peter sighs again, more out of desperation than anything else. “ _Is she at least doing good?_ ” 

Ned logs onto his Beast Slayer account and with muscle memory, starts a new game with Peter. As they sit in the waiting room to play with online gamers, he ponders Peter’s question.

He thinks about it in a way that proves his own theory that Peter still cares just as much as Michelle does. Ned assesses how inappropriate it would be to start talking about them to one another. Probably very inappropriate—even though the two of them do it subconsciously anyway. 

Then, he thinks about Peter’s question outside of the old, constantly burning situation between him and MJ. He thinks about it relative to only MJ, her success in Harvard, and the big news she has been hyping up for the past few weeks. 

“She’s doing really good, Peter.”

“That’s good.” Ned can hear Peter’s voice and know he’s smiling, as mature as he can make himself be about everything. If there’s one thing Ned has noticed, it’s how much both Peter and MJ have grown to handle the situation—even if all they’re missing is one night to open up to each other. 

It’s mostly none of Ned’s business, even though he knows about it. 

All he can do is cheer them on to do what’s best for themselves. 

He just knows that the answer to that is… each other.

“Okay, start the game so I can kick your ass,” Peter snaps Ned out of his spiral of thoughts. 

“You wish,” Ned snorts, beginning the game, feelings of concern still lingering in his chest. 

“You’re what?” Ned asks, voice tense and soft at once. He didn’t think bad news would come after yesterday with Peter, but this—this is the kind of news he didn’t prepare himself for when he became an Adult. 

This is the kind of news that lead to different paths people can take with one another. 

This is goodbye. 

“Going to grad school in LA. I'm moving there after I graduate next year.”

Ned sighs, sinking into the booth of the coffee shop they were supposed to meet at a year ago before Michelle spotted Peter with Felicia. 

It’s true. They were on a date. Hell, Ned had convinced Peter to do it—which aches more than he lets himself ache. 

It’s hard. Feeling torn apart. Watching two lines travel with such keen synchronization—so mirrored that they mimic each other, that they’re parallel.

And they’ll never get to meet again.

Never did Ned ever think he’d hate math theories until he made this realization.

Michelle adds, “Probably gonna live there for a while. Maybe stay for law school. I don’t know.”

His mug of chai latte suddenly feels colder. 

He doesn’t admit his first thought is if she’s going to tell Peter. She probably wouldn’t. 

Ned grins. “Congratulations, MJ. I’m so happy for you.”

She returns the positive air. “Thanks, Leeds.” She sips on her Americano. “It’s scary.”

“I bet.” Ned doesn’t lie, their conversations—of catching up, of future plans, of _life—_ always flowing with a kind of honesty that comes from knowing one another for so long. There’s only one other person Ned has this with, and it’s the person he wishes MJ would realize is still there for her. “You can do if though, MJ. If anyone can escape Queens and the Midtown social circle, it’s you.”

She snorts. “Thanks.”

“You better not fall for some cheesy LA C-list celebrity. They have to be at least B+.”

“Bold of you to imply I wouldn’t strive for an A-lister.”

They both share a throaty laugh, their banter going back and forth, and—after the Big News—it feels different. Like their nights are now numbered. Fading away into old conversations.

He swallows as her laughter fades. She asks, “Can you do me a favor, man?”

“What’s up?” he asks, though he knows what she’s asking.

“I’d do it myself, but my grandma’s in remission and we all just wanna spend time with her upstate. I’m leaving tomorrow, otherwise, I’d ask to make plans, but—”

“I’ll tell him, MJ.”

She smacks her lips. Ned offers sorry eyes. “Like I said… it’s scary.”

He can’t imagine the look on Peter’s face, but he can bet it’d be as sorrowful as Michelle’s. She takes a deep breath before she adds, “I wrote him. Something. Can you give it to him?”

Ned stares at her. He witnesses the softness in her eyes. The way they shift to the screen when the news anchor in the broadcast talks about Spider-Man’s run with the Black Cat. He feels an ache in his heart that can only come from wanting the best kind of love for his two friends. 

“Yeah, I’ll give it to him.”

She smiles, toothless, and full of gratitude. “Is he good though? Peter. Is he good?”

The question echoes like a broken record, one of sweet, entrancing music that throws you back to a specific period in time of your life. 

“Yeah. He’s really good.”

He watches Peter ruffle the folded paper in his fingers. He sits at the foot of his own bed, still dressed in his outfit from volunteering the Christmas Dinner at FEAST for May. 

“I don’t even know if I should read it.”

Ned shrugs. “Your choice. She wanted me to give it to you though.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles. “I should—I should read it.”

“Okay.”

“Whatever it is,” Ned says, striding closer to Peter to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I know it won’t hurt you. It’s MJ. She would never want to hurt you.”

So low that it comes out as a whisper, but loud enough because Ned can pick up any sound that comes from his close friends, Peter says, “Doesn’t mean she hasn’t.”

It’s then that Ned accepts the way things are doesn’t mean that they’ll ever end up the way things should be. Maybe he doesn’t know what’s the best for both of his friends—maybe Ned’s being selfish. But Peter still puts MJ at the center of his universe, and MJ is slowly becoming herself; the one that she’s been working toward since they became friends in high school.

Ned believes it’ll all come together. That the abandoned roads still exist, even if they’re deep in one’s subconscious, still hidden and not yet ready to be found. 

One day, Peter and Michelle will find it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there, y'all.


	5. and it always leads to you in my hometown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Promptmas: 
> 
> _37\. “Stay in bed. It’s warmer.”_

v. _twenty-four_

Michelle wakes up to the sunlight seeping through the high windows of her apartment, still never used to the clear blue skies and warm weather of Southern California. 

Her flight’s today, though. Back to Queens. 

It’s been two years since she’s last stepped foot in New York, both holiday seasons she’s opted out of coming home. It’d been too hard for her to go back. 

Last year, her parents and Jason came to her. It was a sweet gesture. Her roommate, Cindy, cooked tofu stew for everyone. It had been a different Christmas, but since it wasn’t attached to the inevitabe, nostalgic feelings that come with spending the holidays in Queens, Michelle felt better about it. 

One of the biggest reasons—to be honest—Michelle decided to go home is to avoid going to her not-even-a-real-boyfriend’s family’s home in Silicon Valley. 

Harry’s sweet. He’s a great lover. 

But she doesn’t love him like that. 

She’s not ready to meet a family and commit to an entirely new group of people. Once she does that—once she meets his immediate family—she’s in _in._ She shivers. 

His arms crawl up her body, reminding Michelle that he’s actually there, half-naked and in bed with her. He mumbles against her skin, “Morning.”

“My flight’s in five hours."

“You’re fine—LAX always leaves later,” he shrugs. She finds it a bit clingy. They’d only been on five dates. Five weeks isn’t a _relationship_. Michelle wonders if she should establish that. 

Does she even need to? It’s not like he’ll drop her off or pick her up from the airport. 

“I need to double check my packing and eat lunch with my advisor before I go.”

He huffs. “Why do I even try?”

“Stop being dramatic,” she says, the words slipping out of her mouth without even realizing it. She leaves herself stunned, but holds a constant expression–not wanting to look surprised at what she said. “Kidding.”

“It sucks, maybe you could have met my sister. She’s always wanted to go into law.” 

“Right,” she says, sighing. “Listen, Harry… About… us…”

“I think it’s going great,” he wraps his arms around her and she stiffens, but eventually allows herself to soften up. 

“Sure,” she agrees. “But I’m not–”

There’s a rapid knock on the door. “MJ! Wake up! Your flight’s in five hours. You know you have to be there soon.”

She sighs. “I gotta get my shit together, Harry. Go home.”

His shoulders sink. “Fine. Okay. I’ll see you when you’re back and settled in.”

Michelle purses her lips, a soft and subtle thing–a twitch of movement Harry would never notice even if he tried. “Okay.”

They’re not even a _thing._ That’s what she establishes with herself as she watches Harry dress up in the same clothes he came in, not even offering to give him spare clothes. There’s a low feeling in the pit of her stomach that convinces her that he’d fall into an insecurity of some sort knowing Michelle keeps other men’s clothing.

She doesn’t even understand why she can’t push him away. 

She’s lonely. It’s easy to admit. 

Maybe it makes her feel more secure being in a relationship with someone who likes her more than she returns it. It’s selfish. She knows it. 

But they are not dating. They haven’t even told each other how they felt about her. He wanted her to come home to the Bay Area with him as a date to a gala. As a trophy wife–which is the vibe she got when he suggested it in the first place. 

Michelle follows him down the hallway of her apartment and sees him out the door. “You know, it’s okay. If we don’t see each other when I come back.”

He sighs, and the sound of his relief only makes her feel better. “I didn’t really know what _this_ was becoming.”

“I didn’t plan for anything.” She shrugs. “Depends on you.”

Harry blinks. “Okay. I’ll… text you? Maybe. I guess.”

“Okay,” she agrees, smacking her lips. “Bye, Harry. Be safe!”

She closes the door on him softly, turning around to meet eyes with Cindy, amused but not at all surprised. “That was painful. And I only caught the last half of it.”

“Don’t give me shit, please.” 

“Fine,” Cindy says though the unconvinced look on her face tells Michelle everything she needs to know.

“I think I broke it off with him.”

“That’s good,” she says. “Take your mind off men. You’re going home and seeing your family. Focus on that. And your application to Columbia law school.”

Michelle holds the wrinkle in her face. 

She’s gotten the letter back from Columbia already with the results. 

She just hasn’t told anyone she's gotten accepted.

It’s just that—holidays aren’t that simple. Not anymore.

Except, as she thinks about it, she doesn’t remember why there’d been such a bad taste in the past. She does miss her family. She misses her dad’s mystery documentaries and knitting with Grandma. She misses last minute shopping for Mom’s gift with Jason. 

It’s going to be a good time. Michelle wants to manifest this. 

Eventually, she answers Cindy. “You’re right. I’m gonna have a great time.”

She keeps these thoughts in her head and heart, only wanting to expect the best from this visit. 

  
  
  
  


Michelle reaches the airport in a prompt manner. 

Her flight isn’t too bad. No babies crying throughout the duration of the flight. She’s able to watch a documentary about the birth of elephants. She won’t confirm or deny if she cried when the birth happened. 

It’s not until she walks out, hands gripped on her carry-on suitcase and under-dressed for the cold weather, does she feel something within her shift. 

She welcomes herself back to gray clouds and skyscrapers, ones that house a man she hasn’t spoken to in three years. Not since he didn’t react to the letter she wrote him. 

Michelle spilled her heart and nothing. 

That’s when she decided to move on. 

But now, years removed from such a travesty, she’s learned how easily she can get over it. Peter, her superhero boyfriend of the past, is not a problem she’s actively going to put herself in when she comes back. Sure, they can be neighbors, and maybe she’ll run into him in the lobby or hear the pitter patter of his feet against the windows when he sneaks back in. 

The point is, Michelle won’t mind. She’ll wave hello, maybe. That’s all. No hard feelings. 

It’s not like she still wears the necklace he gave her years ago. 

It had become chipped from the move, having to drive across the country with her parents roughing up both her energy and some of her belongings—necklace included. After Frank’s reckless driving nearly costs her the necklace being crushed, Michelle keeps it on so nothing bad can happen to it; or worse, she can lose it. 

Just because things have become the past, doesn’t mean that it becomes a bad thing. 

Her mom has a sign that reads “Chelle” and holds it with pride at the end of the terminal. Michelle smiles at the bouquet of her favorite flowers tucked inside. It’s strange how she doesn’t believe she deserves such an extravagant welcome knowing that she’d basically left Queens and all of her history behind. 

Sometimes, it shocks Michelle knowing how easily her parents welcome her back with open arms. Maybe when she finds the explanation as to why she doesn’t feel the same way as them, she can classify herself as ready to be a mother. But alas, her parents love her and take her home after picking her up with the truck that’s still registered in Massachusetts, reminding Michelle to replace the tags when she wakes up the next day because, as she thinks about Columbia’s letter again, she assumes that New York is calling the truck’s name. 

She continues keeping her acceptance to their law school a secret, even as she’s back inside her bedroom.

Her room is still as small and child-like as ever, but each year she comes home, she finds more and more boxes of untouched trinkets her mom doesn’t seem to want to let go of, piling along the walls of her room—specifically by the untouched balcony. 

“My room’s become a department store.”

“I tried to clear out as much as I could,” her mom shrugs, hand pressed against the small of Michelle’s back in a comfort that she’d missed. She never remembers to call. “But you’re not home anymore."

Her heart clenches. It’s true, but Michelle has forgotten just how blunt the rest of her family can be. Where else would she get it from? 

“Right.” She laughs, a nervous sound coming from her throat. “Right. That’s something I need to talk to you both about.” 

“Oh?” her mother looks at her in curiosity. 

“Yeah. Oh, and Jason, too. He’s coming home right?” 

“He is. He’s taking the red eye tonight.”

“I’ll just wait until Christmas morning.”

Her mom blinks. “Fine”

Michelle feigns exhaustion, yawning and stretching her arms. “Well, would you look at that? The flight’s gotten me so tired. I’m going to just rest and… and see you later.”

She doesn’t let her mom say anything else, slowly guiding her out the door and closing it, turning the lock. 

If she tells her family, her family will want her to come back to New York. They’ll want her to be closer. She’ll be back here but—yes, maybe she’s already pushed away her old histories with people—what if she’s not ready to come home just yet? 

Her bed is lumpy when she flops onto it. The crisp air sends her shivers down her spine. 

It’s all the same, and new at once. _Huh_.

  
  
  


She has trouble falling asleep. The bed frame is too squeaky and it reminds her of the times she and Peter attempted to have sex quietly back in high school when they had no idea what they were doing. It was kind of a blast, discovering what they wanted—being hidden like stupid teenagers. 

How does every thought lead to him?

The next time she checks the clock, after feelings of eternal awakeness and eerie doubts of existence, it’s almost sunrise. She might as well stay up. Make a cup of tea and watch the world wake up from her balcony. It’s the one act of home that she’d been anticipating ever since booking her flight. 

She leans against the railing, balancing her favorite mug full of jasmine tea and milk on the concrete. She takes a deep breath, an inhale of the reality of the present—of what she had been anticipating ever since she left home to find herself. 

Michelle learns it’s not any different from before. 

The knowledge of this doesn’t bother her. She didn’t know what to expect. But the feeling of content toward her current state of being convinces her that coming back might not be all bad. Not if Michelle can't help it.

A brisk, early morning breeze—just when the sky first turns electric blue and hazy—splashes Michelle awake. Heat seething from the freshly poured hot water startles her, too. She looks beyond the horizon of what the trapped balcony allows her to view. Not much, but it’s been the same slice of New York she grew up watching, and that means more than any other view. 

Clearly, she should not have let her guard down and forget about the one person she needed to avoid; not that running into him would have been an issue. Michelle has moved on completely. She’s been dating other people.

She stops moving to watch him closely. 

Peter pauses his crawling. His body stiffens. He turns his head, his lenses squinting in and out, she presumes, to capture a good look of her face. 

“Michelle.” He doesn’t miss a beat. “You’re—it’s—wow. It’s been years.”

Michelle nods. “Two and half.” 

“Damn,” he shakes his head, fingers still lightly pressed against the brick of their building yet finding enough grip. The slow sound of birds chirping crawls into the air. A shiver runs down Michelle’s spine. Peter sighs as he says, “It’s nice… hearing your voice.”

She smiles. It’s uncontrollable. It always has been around Peter. “Yours too, Spider-Man.”

“What?” His lenses blink. He laughs at himself. Some things never change. “Oh, right. Well I should go. Sleep, maybe. If I can.”

“Good night,” she says, sipping on her tea after. 

“Yeah,” he says, legs making its way through his window. “Good… morning?” 

“Something like that,” she guesses, shrugging. Peter chuckles once more, but he doesn’t take his mask off until he’s completely inside. Michelle doesn’t see his face. 

She doesn’t know if it was intentional, but it feels like it, and she can’t help it. It’s unfair that he gets to hide behind the mechanical superhero eyes, and Michelle has to feel caught, to feel accidentally seen in her own home. 

Sleep never comes back to Michelle. Half an hour has passed, and the pinks and oranges are beginning to leak into dawn. She hears a window slide open. A ruffle of a newspaper. She looks out and sees _The Daily Bugle_ spread out. She snorts. 

There’s a cup of coffee balancing on the fire escape railing. Peter, without bringing the newspaper down to reveal his face, says, “Couldn't sleep.” 

“Good morning,” she says, lips pursed, a buzz in her stomach she hasn’t felt in song long—back when the two of them had a hard time being one, so they parted. It’s a good feeling to know his voice still sounds the same, just as accepting, when he speaks her name. 

“How’ve you been, Michelle?” he brings the arms down, peeking from the paper. She can already catch that dark brown gleam smile in his eyes. 

“Good,” she says. Her answer is as honest as it can be. She has been good academically. She’s done with grad school, has a few law school acceptances in her pocket. Her future feels like it’s right here, knocking at her door. 

But is something wrong when Michelle feels like once she opens the door, there are no more rooms to explore? 

“That’s good,” he says, sipping on his cup. He coughs for a second. “There’s some grinds in there.” 

She laughs. “Like always.” 

“Yeah,” he says. 

There’s a silence between them, almost to the point of discomfort until she decides to break it. “How about you? How’s–how’s May? And Hanukkah?” 

“Ended yesterday,” he says. “May’s good. She mentions you a lot. Misses your book recommendations.”

“I’ll shoot her a list.” 

The rest of their morning is spent calm and quiet. Michelle watches as Peter looks at the sunrise with such reverie that reminds her how important these little breaks of life can be. For as long as it’s been since last seeing Peter, she’s glad she can fill this slice of the day––between sleep and wake, in the early hours of the city––with him. 

He rolls his neck, and she can only hear it because the crack of his bones echoes. 

She gives him a look, and he explains, “I’m just really tired.” 

There’s a truth behind his eyes, one that he used to tell Michelle all the time after patrol, damaged and bruised, back when they were stupid kids: 

_This is hard, Michelle. I just–I don’t know. Sometimes I want to give up._

“It’s okay to rest,” she answers. “Even for a little bit.”

_You’re Spider-Man, Peter. You can do anything. I believe in you._

They stare into each other’s eyes. 

Somehow, they always end up in each other’s eyes. 

Swimming in each other’s heads. 

Stumbling into Michelle’s room, between her sheets, tangled limbs, sweat starting to stick after spending hours in below zero weather.

Peter’s mouth, breathless with want, feels warm and wet in between her legs. She doesn’t understand how they ended up here, how his fingers are slowly easing inside her, soaked with her pleasure. 

All she said was, “It’s getting cold out. Let’s go in.” 

Then he replied, “Yours or mine?” 

And when her heart stopped, she took less than a second to blurt out, “Mine.” 

Now, her breathy moans are filling up the room, bed heating up from how hasty that had crawled into it, Peter’s hand sliding down her back, grabbing her waist, and laying her gently. 

His tongue, once licking tiny circles around her clit, lifts up and makes her nudge forward. “Sorry.”

He looks smug. She hates that she loves it, and hates it even more that being surrounded by Peter is something she expected coming home, finally accepting she had been in denial the entire flight from California. 

Peter pops his head up. Michelle watches him as her legs frame his face. “Do you think we should talk about what this means before or after?”

Shs laughs as he sinks back down. “Well, we’ve—ah—missed the before part— _Peter, please._ ”

“After it is,” he declares, diving into her, breathing in her scent. She absorbs his relentless praises into her mind as energy to ride up and down his lips. She whimpers quietly, taking the moment in before it's over too soon, as it has been in the past. 

This moment’s ending won’t hurt if she doesn’t stay long enough to watch him leave her window all over again. 

As he dives into her, exploring her body, making her twitch and ache for more than just two fingers inside of her—she thinks about his question. What does this mean? 

Michelle didn’t come home to be with him again. She came home at peace with the knowledge that Peter’s just a person of the past. This can 100% be a one night stand for her, if that’s what it is for him. It’s better for Peter to be spreading her legs wider and pulling her tighter against his mouth—than for anyone else. 

Everything between them is history. 

All that matters is what she wants right now, and—

“More, Peter,” she pants, writhing and fluttering on his fingers, chest clenching as he rubs the spot that makes her moans scratchy and desperate. “Please, I need you to fuck me.”

“Can I?” Peter asks, voice husky—full of hesitation with a hint of desire that only Michelle can catch. She nods. “Do you have condoms?”

“Same place” she instructs. He gets off the bed, finally shimmies of his sweats and boxers, springing himself out as Michelle shamelessly gawks at him. He waddles, boxers still around his ankles, to the bedside table, opening the bottom drawer and discovering the box of condoms. He takes one out, examines it, and then rips it from its foil.

He stands at the edge of her bed, hand wrapped around himself as Michelle dips her hands in between her legs, drawing her fingers through her cunt. They both sigh, moaning into the air as they please themselves. Then, once fully hard again, Peter rolls the condom on his dick. She watches as he takes a deep breath before climbing back on, finding himself over her, the tip of himself brushing up and down her entrance. 

The second he eases in, Michelle’s races through time, back to the past as she’s strapped to the backseat, no idea who’s driving her and where; yet, at the same time, she has her hands tucked beneath her thighs and feet planted on the floor of the truck that’s speeding down history—their history. 

“I like the necklace,” he pants. She scoffs, but it turns into a scratchy whine. “It’s a little rough around the edges now, huh?” 

“Yeah,” she says, feeling all of Peter pushing through her as she tightens herself around him. “I think I like it better that way.”

She didn’t think there could exist such a thing that feels new and lived all at once, not until Peter thrusts into her like muscle memory, mouth ravishing her neck with bites that she feels too old to be hiding the next morning, but she’ll do it anyway. 

Peter’s always had a thing for making her feel adored. Making her happy, pleasing her, came to him like second nature—which her mom repeatedly pointed out is too suspicious coming from a man, but he’d always been a gentleman.

He used to hold her books, but never insisted too heavily if Michelle said no the first time. He would walk her home before patrol instead of patrolling straight from school, something she never requested but always noticed. 

He made it a point to listen to the jagged sounds of pleasure coming from her throat, made it a point to memorize what nerve he’d struck in between her legs. 

And, now, he _makes_ it a point to show off that he hasn’t forgotten, angling his body and lifting her legs to hit that sweet spot inside her, whispering nothing but filth, but she can still hear the adoration underneath his breath even if it’s a pure whisper in between sheets. 

“Will you come for me?” he mumbles into her body, lips pressed on her collarbones, hot breath moisturizing her skin. She whimpers, body tense as he continues to pump inside her, finding a rhythm that gets the most response—out slowly and in with a force that’s tender yet demanding.

Her breath hitches, back arching from the mattress he’d carefully laid her on. She hisses his name. He starts grunting as he drills into her, helping her ride out her orgasm for as long as he can before he falls apart, coming from the way her walls clench around him.

Peter sighs, almost collapsing on top of her body, Michelle nervous for a beat until she watches him place his body carefully around her. 

“That was a nice welcome back,” she says.

He chuckles, rolling off of her and onto his back, their bodies filling up the small of her twin-sized bed. “Do you like avocados a lot more now?” 

She snorts. “I’ve always liked avocados, Peter.”

“But still,” he says, shrugging. You know those Californians.”

“Well,” she licks her lips. There’s beads of sweat still falling from her temple. 

In a sudden movement, Michelle lifts herself up, back straight, almost scooting out of bed. 

"Stay in bed. It's warmer," Peter says, wrinkling his eyebrows, searching for an answer on her face. "What?"

“Nothing–I just have to pee.” Her heart races. She grabs the condom that Peter finishes tying up. Peter will know she’s panicking from the way she can feel her own pulse in her ears, but she does it anyway, running to the bathroom to clean up.

She tosses the condom in the trash can. She places her hands on the counter of the bathroom skin, one deep breath going in and out. 

Michelle just had sex with Peter Parker—a Peter Parker that’s new to her, one that doesn’t make her feel afraid to venture out into the world because she has. 

Maybe it really is time to come home. 

She decides to wait it out when she enters the room and Peter’s fast asleep on her bed, sun finally fully fledged in the sky. 

  
  
  


An entire week flies by, and she wants to blame it on how often she spent it with Peter, talking across the balcony, sharing new-old stories that span across years. There are tears in her eyes most of the time, sometimes from laughing so hard her stomach began to ache and others from confessions of sorrow for never trying hard enough—on both ends. They didn’t have sex again, but neither of them mentioned it.

She even told him—and the rest of her family—about her Columbia acceptance. 

They were all proud, but they didn't force her to make a choice. Which is relieving and terrifying, all at once.

Still, Michelle had been fine, floating along wherever the waves take her on vacation. 

Then New Year’s Eve came along: a night where the facade of tranquility and peace with being _casual_ falls apart. 

It wasn’t when he and May came over to celebrate, and the moment felt so bright to Michelle she could bask in her memory of it forever. 

It wasn’t when midnight struck and he kissed her softly in the kitchen away from everyone else. 

And it wasn’t when they came home and Peter crawled into her window afterward. 

Peter kisses her forehead. 

He takes too long to say good night in the first place, lingering around her desk before pressing his lips—freshly glossed with chapstick—on her forehead. Not at the center, but not right at the temple. He kisses her on the sweet spot that he picked many years ago.

“What was that?” she asks.

He blinks. “What do you mean?” 

“That kiss.”

Peter chuckles. He thinks she’s joking. “I mean we did a lot more the first night that you came.”

She doesn’t say anything. The silence starts to feel loud, but she ignores it—eyes intense and drilling into Peter’s. He holds a blank stare. 

“What?” he asks.

Her throat feels dry, a lump forming. “We shoudn’t have done that.”

“Michelle…”

“I—I gotta,” she walks away from him, feeling the late brush of his fingers reaching out to her. She ignores it, turning around to face him. 

“Seriously?” Peter sighs. “We’re adults, MJ. We did something. It happened. I’m not making a big deal out of it anymore. It doesn’t mean-”

She accepts how she’d walked herself into that one. “Right. It doesn’t.”

“That’s not-”

“Don’t come by tomorrow, Pete.” She backs up a few steps. “I can’t hurt you by making you watch me leave again.”

“Okay.” He presses his lips together, accepting. “Happy New Year, MJ.”

Then he’s gone.

  
  


She waits for Peter stupidly. 

Scarily enough, she could almost be running late to the airport. Almost. But her parents nudge her off their living room couch, roll her carry-on suitcase with her, and a bundle of layers that she’ll regret wearing the moment she steps out into LAX.

Michelle’s silly. 

Why did she ever think he’d actually not listen to her and show up for the first time and surprise her? She can’t blame him—she can never—but sometimes, her heart calls for some cheesy, happy ending where everything works itself out in fifteen minutes. 

Life just doesn’t work that way. 

Then, as she turns the knob of their front door, ready to go back to California—to go back to frustrating herself over the indecision of whether or not to go Columbia—Peter’s there. 

In her doorway. A stupid, nervous, dopey grin etched on his face. Red tinted ear tips and the eyebrow that never quits. 

“I wanted to give you a proper goodbye, and I know you said not to come, but—dammit—Michelle, I love you,” he says, all at once, breathless after spilling. “And it’s not the love that wants you to stay even though I do. It’s the love that no matter what… no matter _where_ you go, I’ll still love you.” 

Her lips quiver. She lets go of the suitcase and it drops to the floor. Footsteps fade into the hallway, giving them privacy. “Peter.”

“MJ.”

“I love you, too.” She tucks her fringe behind her ear. “In your way.” 

His body loosens up. “Yeah.”

“In so many ways."

His eyes shine. “Yeah.” He grabs her hands, clasping them with his. “You _were_ –” he exhales a low chuckle, “–you are the only person I’ve ever felt this way with.”

“Me too.”

“I just needed you to know that.” 

“Thank you.” A beat. 

Another.

_Just say it Michelle. Tell him. About how she wants to go to Columbia, but she's too afraid to say it out loud._

_About her stupid feelings._

_About everything._

“I’m really gonna be late, Peter.” His eyes fall and it breaks her heart more than any person that’s ever succeeded in hurting her. He steps back, one stride closer to his own apartment door. The flicker of the cheap hallway lights dies out. “I’m sorry.”

  
  
  


How can she do this?

She stares out the window, basking in the last ounces of winter snow she’ll get before going back to California.

How can she wait for him, then when he comes, walk away?

She starts counting the months she’ll have left in California if she decides to move back. It’s more exciting than dreadful.

Why did she leave? 

Again?

  
  
  


Mom loves to put _I’ll Be Home For Christmas_ on repeat, even well into the New Year. She feels that song in her bones, tells Michelle there’s never been something so tragic captured in a holiday song. 

As they listen to it on the drive to the airport, where Michelle will travel across the country, as far away from home as she can be, the ballad sinks into her soul. The lyrics make her want to follow it—to make dreams not just dreams. To come home. 

To explain everything to Peter. 

She means everything. 

“Dad,” she says. “Can you turn around?”

“What sweetie?” he asks, one hand turning down the music before going back to her mom’s thigh. 

“I need to talk to Peter.”

He huffs. “Can’t you FaceTime him?” 

“It’s–it’s more than that, Dad.” She says, trying to let her voice not sound weak. “He’s–”

Someone to shop for ridiculous kitchen appliances with. 

“It’s like you and Mom,” she says. “When I look at him… I feel… warm.” He stares at her through the rearview. He closes his eyes quickly, then back open. “Please, Dad.”

And then he listens, making the next U-Turn and speeding back home—bringing Michelle to a road she never thought she would find again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for continuing to read and comment this. I appreciate it more than you know <3 
> 
> (And thanks for loving it even if promptmas is way past over).


	6. the one time she stays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Promptmas:
> 
> _62\. Home for the holidays_

\+ _twenty-eight_

A shiver runs through Michelle’s spine, the hollowed rooms of all her childhood Christmases—now all in the past, and no more to come. She’d visited Grandma’s house one last time, gathering all of the left belongings before it goes on sale, four years after her passing. 

She sighs, releasing the deep breath she’d held as she roamed the old foyer, fingers tracing the worn out wallpaper with the pattern only her grandma would pick. The leftover boxes from the attic sit at the front door, Michelle finishing her loop around the first floor before packing the boxes on the back of her truck along with the others she’d packed weeks ago. 

Home is the next stop. A new home—one that, after years of waiting—Michelle finally finds herself ready for.

The engine hums as she turns the key, letting the truck warm up before making her way back into the city, the stress of moving in her bones, hoping for the move-in process to not take up the entirety of her last winter break from Berkeley’s law program. It was her last chance to relax until she’s thrown into the workforce, already accepting Nelson & Murdock’s offer after the spring semester is over. 

As she pulls from the driveway, shivering at the weak heater and desperate to fill the silence even with the static beneath the busted radio, _I’ll Be Home For Christmas_ at a low volume, making her heart melt. She pictures every moment that this song captures, and then she imagines what it’ll be like to open the door to her new apartment in just a few hours, walking inside and seeing Peter on the couch in deep sleep.

And this time, she doesn’t need to leave anymore. 

The song takes her back to her last year of grad school when Michelle had been so caught up in the possibilities of the future that present-day-Michelle can’t believe is finally here. It takes her back to when she chased Peter down, doing the most dramatic thing she’s ever done by missing her flight to talk to him again––to really talk to him.

_She ended up knocking on his front door, only to be greeted by the one and only May—the heat so prominent on Michelle’s cheek through cold sweat and nerves. Peter’s aunt smiled softly at her, holding up one finger before stepping back into the apartment._

_Then, there he was, facing her as she stood underneath his doorway._

_For as often as Peter snuck into her balcony, tapping on the window in quiet hours of the night, somehow, Michelle had always known she’d end up here._

_“Do you want me to stay?” Michelle had asked, voice shaking from the fear of his answer knowing that if her gut had been wrong, she would have missed her flight and embarrassed herself to the point of no return._

_“What?” he blinked. The silence around them was deafening, but she stayed by the door, arms crossed and waiting for an answer."_

_“Peter,” she said, serious tone beneath her words. “Yes or no?”_

_“I couldn’t do that to you, MJ.”_

_A beat. “But if you had to choose.”_

_Depending on his answer, Michelle needed to find her own. It had always been even with them—the risks they took, the hurt they had experienced._

_If Peter answers what she thought he would, what she wanted him to then..._

_“Well–of course–of course, I would want you to stay.”_

_Tears fell down her eyes, her voice cracking quietly. “Then would you wait for me?”_

  
  


The song ends, and so comes in another with the same bells jingling to keep up with the festive theme her favorite radio station hosts every holiday season. Michelle continues to grin at the memory—the very moment she’d decided that through it all, Peter was the only person she could imagine coming back to. 

She snuggles closely in her seat, the heater finally picking up, but she still bundles up on the final stretch of the way, though the thought of her boyfriend helps at making her melt. 

It’s their first time seeing each other since the last holiday because Michelle quickly filled her summers with internships and conferences, Peter never wanting to come in the way of her flow, but never being able to escape New York City to visit her because of his duties as Spider-Man. 

The three years were rough, Michelle can admit. But it was different. They were stronger, in more ways, compared to when they were barely 18 with no clue about the world. 

Now, freshly 28 with just a touch of _what now_ but still optimistic for more, Michelle feels—has been feeling—that they’re reading to move forward and begin a life together. Truly together. They have a signed lease and two sets of keys for one lock to prove it. 

  
  


A flash surprises her when she opens the door for the first time. She blinks, letting the after-images fade away to meet Peter’s grin, the look on his eyes never getting old to her––only growing with a softness that she knows is just for her. 

“What was that for?” she asks, squeezing herself in and only having brought the suitcase, now feeling on edge that she’d left the rest of her things in a sketchy parking garage beneath their apartment building. 

“I wanted to capture your first reaction to the apartment in a picture,” he says. “I used my 35mm camera. You’ll look beautiful, as always.”

“Well, you’ve blinded me and I can’t see,” she laughs, blinking rapidly. “Can we grab the rest of my things, Spider-Man?” 

He kisses her forehead, then her nose, then her lips. His is soft, always glossy. “Of course, my lady.” 

She snorts, nudging him. He nudges back. With so much time passing between them, she wonders how Peter still has the ability to make her heart rate increase like a little kid on the playground with their first crush.

It’s a feeling that Michelle from Midtown High would be disgusted by––just to keep up that facade of strength. She laughs at herself as they make their way to the garage, thinking about how young and reckless and passionate she had been in the past, still hoping that she holds those same pillars as an adult. 

Peter’s hand slips into hers, natural and warm, just right. 

“How was the drive?”

“Empty,” she says. “Surprisingly.” 

“Congrats,” he perks up. “New York is being kind to you on your first day back.”

She sighs. “I’ve had a very long day.” 

“I know,” he squeezes his fingers in between hers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help. I was stuck with Matt all day trying to investigate this ongoing crime and––”

“It’s okay, Pete,” she looks at him as he guides her through the garage door. “I did a pretty great job by myself.”

“I believe you,” he soothes. They reach her truck, the rust on her bender building up. He winces. “You need to get rid of this thing.”

“Then how would I get places?”

Peter wrinkles his face, unclicking the back of the truck so he can pull the dolly out. “You’ve been in California for too long.” 

“Shut up,” she rolls her eyes, arms crossed, watching his muscles flex as he grabs the boxes with ease. 

“You don’t have a lot of things,” he says. “Toss them all?” 

“Starting fresh,” she explains. “Plus sharing a closet with you will be a nightmare.”

“Hey,” he says, propping the last box on the dolly, Michelle’s eyebrows rising from trying to understand how Peter will pull bringing all of the boxes––though a little amount––all the way up to their fourth-floor apartment. “I have three clothes.”

“Yeah. No wonder why you’re smelly.”

He gasps, faking offense. She almost wants to make the boxes fall over, just for childish revenge, but she refrains knowing that those are the only things she brought over from her parent’s apartment. 

Leaving them had been hard, too. She’s had places of her own in different cities, but to truly remove herself from the place she’d grown up in was strange. Her mom hugged her tight on the last night of last winter after Michelle had told her parents of her plans to move in with Peter in exactly a year. 

For as often as she turns the pages in her book of life, new chapters always find a way of making Michelle’s heart pinch with something new, something fresh and hopeful and never before seen. 

She can’t imagine how hard it would be to watch her own future children move out. 

Michelle takes a peek at Peter, not one ounce of his body struggling. She’s almost feeling needy, and it surprises her at first, only letting herself all out because she’s no longer afraid to truly _feel_ this way. 

Peter lets her sidestep him to open the door, Michelle’s own legs aching from walking so much after being stuck in a car driving from upstate just right before. He unloads the boxes and settles them in the front of their space. 

With time to finally take everything in, she smiles. Not too shabby for a studio apartment in Queens. Their bed is tucked in the corner of the room, the kitchen table pushed against the wall by the foot of the bed to separate the bedroom from the rest of the kitchenette. 

It’s small, but theirs, and that’s something no one can take away from them. 

“Welcome home,” Peter whispers in her ear, finding himself pressed against her back. She shivers at his breath, but heat starts to pool in her stomach. He leans forward, kisses her cheek, and chuckles. He spins her around gracefully, a precision that continues to shock Michelle. 

He dips her down and kisses her on the lips, dramatic and cheesy and somehow everything she’s been waiting forever since she hopped on a flight to the city earlier this morning––her sense of time still off, but Michelle’s willing to knock look at the clock just to make this moment last longer. 

She pulls back slowly, smiling at him. “I need to unpack. And shower. And eat. And–” Another kiss. “Peter.”

“Okay, okay,” he brings her back standing. “No dessert until later, got it.”

“What is with you?” she lightly smacks him, a look still as loving as always.

“I missed you.”

She looks at him again, catching the gleam that comes from the dim kitchen lighting. “I missed you, too.” 

Peter dips his mouth against her neck, a soft press of heat on her skin. She sinks into his lips, wrapping her arms around him. 

Michelle sighs and surrenders to the way his tongue starts dancing on her body. “I guess it can wait.” 

Just like that, Peter hoists her legs, wrapping them around him, kissing her mouth passionately as he carries her on the bed. He lays her down, sinking himself down the bed to stand up again, removing his clothes so quickly Michelle doesn’t even blink. 

She gives him a pointed look. “Eager?” 

“With you? Always.” She removes her own clothes, save for her underwear. Peter’s eyes light open as he moves, keeping just his black boxer briefs on and finding himself back on the bed. He’s hovering over her as he moves up her body, leaving a trail of kisses from her stomach to her mouth. Her hand slips in between them, rubbing gently at Peter. “Wow.”

“What?” she smiles innocently. “Just wanted to help.”

“You are,” he pants. “I–I just–”

“Let me,” she whispers, pressing a kiss on his nose before she urges Peter to switch positions, ending up on top of him as their lips find each other once again. She slips her tongue in his mouth, just as eager and ready as he had been. 

It’s beautiful, the way their bodies move knowing how often they’d adapted to one another. Michelle sighs as he slips his tongue out of her mouth and slacks it against her jaw, hitting yet another favorite place she loves to be kissed by Peter. She lets her arms out, laying them flat against the mattress as he continues to move his tongue against her skin, mapping out the trail that never fails to find Michelle’s bliss at the end of the night. 

She loves Peter, loves him so much, and for so long that she’s finally learned to accept all of the circumstances that come with dating someone like him, someone that risks their life every single day for not just the people he loves, but an entire city. With Peter, she experiences the highest highs, despite undergoing the lows of a world that her humanness cannot comprehend as something other than how life has always been in Queens. 

As he starts making his way down to the place she wants his breath the most, Michelle’s breath hitches as she whimpers his name, the sound of it feeling so right in her mouth as she thinks about all the times that she didn’t think she’d find him in her voice anymore. They’d grown so much, apart and slowly back together, living lives they needed to live before understanding that their lives would never feel full if they didn’t find each other underneath Peter’s doorway. 

Three degrees and Michelle laughs at herself for how long it had taken the both of them to get to this point—a point where Peter’s lapping up and down her center as she cards his soft, curly hair, fingers intertwining, only for Michelle to grip them as the pace of Peter’s tongue speeds up against her. But then again, maybe it has always meant to be this way. 

Maybe she needed the push her past-self gave her, allowing herself to grow into the full person she wants to be before committing to a life that no one at 18 could ever accept. 

Peter slicks two fingers inside her already, desperate to please, begging to hear her ask for more. She does, she always does, tugging at his hair and stating, “I want you inside me.”

He groans at her expression, and Michelle’s lips curl slightly knowing how turned on Peter gets with her deadpan voice and pointed stare. “Say less.”

They scramble for a condom, Peter ripping the foil and allowing Michelle to roll it on him. She pumps him up and down, takes him in his mouth, works him up until she finally sinks onto him. She finds Peter’s hands pressed softly on her ass, guiding her as she moves up and down. 

“God, I’ve missed you,” he says, voice husky and dry. “Just like that, Em.”

She listens, bouncing up and down as she stares into his eyes—both of them breaking into laughter at how serious he’d sounded, Michelle making fun of him by mocking his voice, but it only gets Peter to pull her close to his body and start bucking into her almost relentlessly.

“Stop teasing,” he whispers hot into her mouth. 

She pants, “More."

Their movements are messy, desperate, and so full of love for each other that their muscles remember where to go in the same way Michelle has made her way back to Queens, back to the place that—no matter how far she’d leave—will always be home. 

This is where she belongs, limbs tangled so precisely with one another, with the knowledge of how much of their shared history has made them who they are. 

Michelle gasps as Peter finds the sweet spot inside her, thrusting inside her with a force that’s gentle and needy all at once. She’s soaking, dripping around him as she clenches her entire body, also eager to find the release that she’d been missing. When he finally brings her over the edge, both of them chasing their climaxes just a touch apart, they sigh, Peter plopping next to her, their breaths heavy. 

She grabs his hand like it’s automatic. 

Like her fingers always know how to find themselves in between Peter’s. 

That’s how it is between them, both of them finding a rhythm so perfect for another one that, despite how long it took them to get there, Peter and Michelle have everyone beat. 

Before Michelle moves from the bed, she grins at the ceiling before closing her eyes and forming an image in her head that has never been more clear with what her life is supposed to be like. 

She can picture it now: Peter and MJ traveling in that old truck that she’d found her one of her different lives, her hand clutching the wheel and another pressed on Peter’s thigh, his presence is the only thing she needs. 

There’s a road in front of them, one that she’s never seen before, and as she peers further in front of her, she notices that it’s theirs, a new one that has never been taken.

Michelle grins, chest soft, visualizing so much of the future that she’s always wanted to have, and after years of illicit weekends, messy tires, and missed connections, Michelle’s heart finally understands where it belongs because out of everything—difficult goodbyes, written letters, and a thirst to find themselves first—they’re finally with each other, taking the path that they’d built together, and finally letting their love light the way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and all your wonderful comments. I love you all, and I know it's well-past the holidays, but I hope you all had a good one <3


End file.
